Biodiesel from coconut oil?

Posted by Ian Cunningham to Energy, 14th May at 11:32 AM


One of our project partners is looking at using coconut oil to power a diesel pump. Does anyone know anything about this? If so, please contact Ian at National Office 03 9696 9040

Posted 1 Year, 8 Months ago by Ian Cunningham

Dear Ian

My apologies for the delay in responding to your message on the potential of coconut oil as a fuel in diesel engines. I was investigating some work that had been carried out in Sri Lanka as I had been directed towards the Department of Energy Efficiency and Environment at the National Engineering Research and Development Centre in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, I have not yet had a response but will pass on anything that comes my way.

 

One item article that could be useful is the following from HandsOn http://www.tve.org/ho/series4/volt_face_reports/coconutcrude_vanuatu.html which I have included below as some of the contact details look as though they coud be useful

Report 2 (of 6): Coconut Crude - Vanuatu

Introduction

Coconuts have been widely harvested in tropical coastal areas. The principal product is copra, the dried flesh of the nut, from which oil is extracted for use in food products such as margarine as well as in cosmetics and soap. In recent years the demand for copra has been falling, and with it the price, leading to declining incomes in regions heavily dependent on copra production. However, on the islands of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean an entrepreneur, Tony Deamer, has succeeded in using coconut oil in fuel for motor vehicles. Potentially this enterprise could help to revitalise the market for copra and have wide-ranging environmental benefits as well.

 

Island Economy Vanuatu is a relatively poor country with an average per capita income of US$1,200 per year and with 80 per cent of the population living in rural areas. It is located in the South Pacific ocean, 650 miles west of Fiji and 1500 miles north-east of Australia. Its 83 islands stretch north to south from the Torres Islands near Santa Cruz in the Solomon Islands to the Matthew and Hunter Islands east of New Caledonia. Vanuatu is divided into three island groups: the Torres and Banks Group, the Central Group, and the Tafea islands. The capital is Port Vila on the island of Efate.

In common with many small and medium sized island economies Vanuatu is a net importer of goods, importing about three times the amount it exports.

 

Diesel fuel accounts for about US$9 million, or about 10 per cent of the total value of imports. If a sizeable proportion of imported diesel could be substituted by an indigenously produced fuel, it would make a significant difference to the balance of payments deficit.

Copra is the main export commodity of Vanuatu, so the economy is heavily dependent on its price. Lack of opportunity and underemployment are serious problems in the country, and realising the full potential of coconut-based products could offer many opportunities for developing rural-based livelihoods and providing increased and more secure incomes.

A Versatile Commodity Coconut is a very useful resource, not only for producing oil. The coconut fibre from the nut, known as coir, can be processed into mats, rope, fabrics, brushes and a biodegradable packaging material as an alternative to expanded polystyrene, as well as an environmentally friendly alternative to peat for potting and bedding plants. The coconut shell is good for making charcoal for fuel, and activated charcoal for purifying water and other liquids and gases. The residue from the pressing of the oil makes a good animal feed. The oil itself can be used for cooking. It can also be used as fuel for lamps.

There is a growing interest in the health benefits of virgin coconut oil that has not been hydrogenated, a process which extends the shelf-life of oil products but has associated health risks.

Commercial Oil Production

Vegetable oil from soya and rapeseed (canola) has similar uses to coconut oil. In many countries the growing of soya has expanded and harvests of the crop have generally been good, so the market and price for copra have declined. On some estates on the islands of Efate and the Tafea group the coconut crop is no longer harvested, as this is not economic. Even where copra is produced, demand is mainly for high quality grades. It is very difficult to sell the poorer quality copra and make a profit. This mostly comes from smaller producers who use sun or smoke to dry the coconut. Drying coconut flesh slowly in the open air also risks bacterial infection.

Vanuatu exports coconut oil as well as raw copra. A single large mill, C.O.P.V. Santo, produces this. Producing oil for fuel could feasibly be done by a number of smaller mills at different locations. This would help to improve rural incomes and economies and could mitigate the migration from rural areas to towns where there are few employment opportunities.

Environmental advantages for using biofuels such as coconut oil compared with diesel include:

• Raw material resources are renewable and not finite;


• Trees grown for producing the fuel also re-absorb some of carbon dioxide released in burning the fuel;


• The fuel is cleaner-burning, releasing fewer particulates and noxious gases than diesel.

Coconut Oil as Vehicle Fuel

The use of oil obtained from the nuts of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) for fuel has been championed for several years by Tony Deamer, a garage owner and vehicle supplier based in Port Vila, the capital city of Vanuatu. The success of this enterprise will assist economic development in Vanuatu and encourage rural development where many livelihoods are heavily dependent on the coconut crop and processing. The government in Vanuatu and the national and international media are showing interest in the project.

After extensive experimentation Mr Deamer is successfully running five of his own fleet of hire vehicles on coconut oil. In late 2002 about 200 minibuses were also running on a coconut / diesel oil mixture, but a change in government excise duty has resulted in a price increase on fuel mixtures, and has reduced this number somewhat, though many minibus owners are still continuing to use this fuel. Mr Deamer together with another local coconut oil producer has been negotiating with the government for a reduction of duty on coconut oil-based mixtures.

The use of coconut oil in engines is not new. It was used, for example, in the Philippines during the Second World War when diesel was in short supply. Since then the wide availability of diesel throughout the world and difficulties in running engines on coconut oil in cooler weather had virtually ended its use in this way. In recent years there has been a revival of interest in a number of countries, e.g. Thailand, India, the Philippines and some Pacific island states. This was due to the growing demand for diesel because numbers of vehicles and equipment were increasing, leading to higher prices and in some countries shortages. There were also concerns about growing import deficits and environmental pollution caused by increasing diesel use.

Technical difficulties

The main drawback with using coconut fuel oil in engines is that it starts to solidify at a temperature below 22°C, and by 14°C it is close to solid and does not flow at all. In tropical countries temperatures fall below 22°C on a significant number of nights throughout the year, and sometimes during the day in the cooler season. If the engine is started while the temperature is below 22 C, the fuel filter is likely to become blocked.

Remedies

One remedy is to fit a heat exchanger in the fuel line, which warms up the fuel sufficiently within a minute of starting the engine. Another option is to mix the coconut oil with another fuel, and Mr Deamer has tested various proportions of coconut oil with diesel or kerosene.

Coconut oil can be maintained as a liquid to lower temperatures if water (generally about 4 per cent of the oil), and free fatty acids (ffas - are unattached long chain molecules of carboxylic acids produced by the breakdown of fats in the oil; 2 to 3 per cent), are removed. Mr Deamer uses a proprietary filtration process involving gravity and no chemical additives for this. Then it has been possible to run vehicles using 100 per cent coconut oil treated in this way without a heat exchanger. The fuel made by this process is sold under the name of Island Fuel, though the minibus drivers still prefer to blend this fuel with 20 or 40 per cent diesel, especially in cooler weather.

The relative simplicity of the filtration process is the key to its innovative nature. There are other processes available to produce a coconut oil suitable for fuel, but they are relatively complex, likely to need imported know-how, equipment and chemicals, and more suitable for large- rather than small-scale operation. Probably the best known of these is transesterification, the main product of which is a methyl or ethyl ester with a low solidifying temperature, and this fuel is usually known as biodiesel. The process involves dehydration of the oil followed by reaction with sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) and methanol or ethanol. The New and Renewable Energy (or NRE) method involves fermenting a mixture of grated coconut and coconut water with yeasts to produce alcohols, then a further fermentation under heat and pressure with bacteria that release methane to produce hydrocarbons.

Performance

The performance of the coconut oil in running vehicles has been extensively monitored. With the oil obtained from the factory the minibus operators are generally using a coconut oil / diesel blend. However, Mr Deamer considers that with the Island Fuels oil, produced by the proprietary filtration process, a coconut oil / kerosene blend works better as the engine can be started and run in temperatures as low as 16°C. During warmer months a 90 / 10 coconut oil / kerosene mix can be used, but in the cooler part of the year the mixture used is 85 / 15.

Coconut oil burns more slowly than diesel, which results in a more even pressure applied to the pistons during their movement in the cylinders of the engine. This in turn leads to less engine wear, a quieter engine and better fuel economy. Also, as the coconut oil burns slower and has better lubricating qualities than diesel, the engine gets less hot and there is less wear, which helps to prolong engine life. Under-revving of the engine is also less of a problem, so it is not always necessary to change down the gears when slowing down or climbing hills, which makes for easier driving and less wear on the gearbox. Trials carried out over one year, using unprocessed coconut oil and diesel mixture, have confirmed decreased wear on the engine and components compared with using diesel on its own.

Extracting the Oil

It is suggested that one of the better grades of copra be used for producing oil for fuel. This is generally copra that has been dried in a hot air drier, rather than sun or smoke dried.

A promising development for oil extraction has been a low-pressure method devised by Dr Dan Etherington of the Australian National University. Conventionally, high-pressure screw presses are needed to extract the oil from copra, and these need to be driven by an engine as humans or animals do not have enough power to move them. Dr Etherington found that oil can be extracted from copra at a significantly lower pressure than normal when it has been dried to a particular moisture content, and simpler manually operated presses can be used. It can be quite difficult to dry the copra to the right level, so it is better dry it out as far as possible in the sun or a hot air drier, then add the necessary amount of water. The water would be mixed in with the oil product and would need to be removed before it could be used for fuel.

This process is being disseminated under the designation of Direct Micro Expelling (DME) and small mills have been set up by local people on various island states, for example Kiribati, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Tuvalu, but not Vanuatu as yet. Because the process can be carried out on a small scale this makes it accessible to coconut growers who can produce oil as a value-added product and are therefore less dependent on agents for the big oil producers who usually offer low prices for copra.

Future Prospects

There is growing interest in biofuels such as coconut oil for their environmental benefits and to ease shortages and balance of payments deficits as the demand for diesel on island states continues to grow. Tony Deamer has demonstrated the technical, economic and environmental feasibility of using coconut oil on its own, or mixed with a proportion of kerosene or diesel for driving motor vehicles. C.O.P.V. Santo are using coconut oil for powering generators in their own mill and it could be used in other machinery and equipment such as tractors and pumps, which are worked often and for long periods.

Supportive policies at international and national level as well as regionally focused research could extend the impact that Mr Deamer has already achieved in Vanuatu throughout tropical island states.

Acknowledgement

Practical Action (formally ITDG) would like to thank Tony Deamer for the help and advice in putting together this case study.

Further Information

Hands On

Series 3: Donuts for Diesel, UK

The Philippine Coconut Authority is a leading research and resource centre on coconut cultivation and the use of coconut-based products. 
PCA Bldg. Elliptical Road, Diliman,
Quezon City, Philippines
Tel: +632-928-4501/927-8116 
Fax: +632-921-6173
pca_ofad@mozcom.com
http://pca.da.gov.ph/
Relevant pages to this paper include details of a pilot project to use coconut methyl ester, a derivative of coconut oil, in small quantities in fuel for motor vehicles
http://pca.da.gov.ph/cme.html
And an article about a company promoting the use of coconut methyl ester with diesel
http://pca.da.gov.ph/news13.html

Further information about Direct Micro Expelling can be found on the website set up to market the process - http://www.kokonutpacific.com.au/

An article in One Country, the online newsletter of the Bahá'í International Community, Vol. 15, Issue 1, April - June 2003, gives further background and details on the utilisation of coconut oil as fuel for motor vehicles in Vanuatu

Details of the laboratory study on the transesterification process on Nigerian coconut and other plant-based oils
http://bst.portlandpress.com/bst/028/0979/0280979.pdf
http://bst.portlandpress.com/bst/028/0979/
bst0280979.htm

Senbel Fine Chemicals Company Inc., are a company specialising in products derived from coconut oil including biodiesel and their website includes some informative notes on biodiesel
20/F Richville Corporate Tower 1107 Alabang-Zapote Road
Madrigal Business Park Alabang, Muntinlupa City Philippines
Tel: +632 850-6877; 809-6101; 809-6102
Fax: +632 809-6116
E-mail: Senbel@vasia.com
http://www.senbel.com.ph/

Veggiepower - A website for biodiesel enthusiasts with hints on how to make, filter and blend biodiesel from new or used cooking oil and other oils derived from plants. Details how to obtain the book From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank - The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil as a Fuel, by Joshua Tickell, also included
http://www.veggiepower.org.uk/

More information for the do-it-yourself biodiesel producer can be found at the following address:
http://journeytoforever.org/edu.html#biofuel

Veggie Van - a site with comprehensive information on biodiesel including a contacts database, focused mainly on the United States. There is also a feature on Joshua Tickell, and his book From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank - The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil as a Fuel, can be bought or downloaded for a charge from the site
http://www.veggievan.org/

Note - there are numerous other websites and pages about biodiesel, generally concerning production from vegetable oil using the transesterification process.

There is a detailed Japanese technical study on engine performance and exhaust emissions with coconut oil - 'The Effect of Coconut Oil and Diesel Fuel Blends on Diesel Engine Performance and Exhaust Emissions', Herchel Thaddeus C. Machacon, Yutaka Matsumoto, Chihiro Ohkawara, Seiichi Shiga, Takao Karasawa & Hisao Nakamura in JSAE Review 22 (2001), pp.349-355, Elsevier

I will pass on any additional material that I am able to obtain from Sri Lanka but in the meantime if you have any further questions or comments then please feel free to contact me ]

 

Yours sincerely

Neil

 

 

Neil Noble

Practical Answers Coordinator

neil.noble@practicalaction.org.uk

 

http://practicalaction.org/practicalanswers/

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Posted 1 Year, 7 Months ago by Todd Houstein

Check out Anoop's comments and file on coconut oil as a fuel here

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